Rancho San Rafael — the Chinese Pagoda Pavilion & the “N”
A Chinese pagoda in the big park under the Sierra — raised for the people this city erased.
Key facts
- Rancho San Rafael Regional Park (~580 acres off N Sierra St) holds the Wilbur D. May Arboretum, the hillside “N,” and the Great Reno Balloon Race, with the Sierra Nevada behind.
- A Chinese Pagoda Pavilion was dedicated here in 1984.
- It was raised by the trustees of the Joss House Society as a memorial to Reno's Chinese community — built after Chinatown's last joss house was demolished in the late 1950s. It is not a sister-city gift.
Narration transcript
Last stop — and get out of the car for this one. This is Rancho San Rafael, Washoe County's big park: an arboretum, open hills, the balloon race every September, and the giant white "N" on the slope for the university. Behind it all, the Sierra Nevada — the same mountains the railroad had to be cut through.
Walk to the Chinese pagoda. It was dedicated in 1984, and here's what it is, because it's often told wrong: it is not a gift from a sister city or a tourist ornament. It was built by the trustees of Reno's old Joss House Society — the people who had kept the temple from the destroyed Chinatown — as a memorial to Reno's Chinese community. After the last building of the old Chinatown came down in the 1950s, they raised this, out here under the mountains, so there would be something left that honoured them.
So the tour ends where it began, in a way: with the Chinese community that built this place. Downtown, Reno erased them. Out here, it finally built something to remember them by. Walk up a little for the view.